COFFEE & CONVERSATION WITH THE SULTAN OF SOKOTO
WASHINGTON, DC: THE WILSON CENTER July 26th, 2016
I began serious planning for a month-long, 3-country tour of my MAMA KYOTA movie the first week in July. After years of fieldwork, archival research, and training in
the basics of digital movie-making, the documentary was just
about ready to go on the road. With a plane to catch before the
end of the month, I faced a tight deadline… with no time to
waste.
Out of the blue, an invitation appeared in my e-mail:
His Royal Eminence Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, Sultan of Sokoto, is the spiritual leader of the Muslim community in Nigeria (and millions more in neighboring countries), a revered leader in Northern Nigeria, and a highly regarded figure in the country. Please join the Wilson Center Africa Program in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development and the International Interfaith Peace Corps for a conversation with H.E. Alhaji Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, as he discusses key issues affecting Nigeria including … religious tolerance and Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, his work and advocacy for the empowerment girls and women in Muslim-majority Northern Nigeria, the fight against Boko Haram, and his views on the prospects for Nigeria’s future.
These very issues are addressed in my documentary. Rather than watch the event online, I decided to go to D.C. and meet the Sultan.
**A quick personal note to the Wilson Center’s Africa Program Director, Monde Muyangwa, got me an invitation to join a small group of people who met with the Sultan over coffee and juice before his formal address. This intimate setting provided the opportunity to speak briefly about my movie and ask His Eminence (H.E.) to host a screening. He agreed without hesitation, and instructed his companion, Alh. Aliyu Attihiru, the Galadiman Gari of the Sultanate’s Council in, to give me his contact information. I was to e-mail Attihiru in advance, and phone him once I arrived in Sokoto. Mission accomplished!
After juice and conversation with the Sultan, I found the public address uninspiring. By contrast, Muyangwa’s reading of H.E.’s CV was a high point for me.
Muhammad Sa’ad III is a direct descendant of Usman Ɗan Fodio, famed religious scholar, reformer of Islam, and founder of the Sokoto Caliphate. A critic of certain African Muslim leaders known for their greed, religious syncretism, and violations of Shari’a law, Ɗan Fodio led an 18th century jihad that ousted the rulers of the precolonial Hausa sates and launched a movement of religious reform that reverberated across West Africa.
Proud of this heritage, the young Abubakar attended the prestigious Barewa College, Zaria and proceeded to the Nigerian Defense Academy in 1975. A distinguished military career followed. Battalion-level command posts with an OAU peacekeeping force in Chad and with ECOMOG Operations during Sierra Leone’s civil war honed skills at the intersection of peace and security. While serving as Defense Attaché to the Nigerian embassy in Pakistan (also accredited to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan), Abubakar gained experience in the world of military diplomacy.
In his present role as the 20th Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate in Northern Nigeria, HE is a paragon of civic engagement. Presiding as head of the Nigerian National Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), head of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (Society for the Support of Islam – JNI), Co-Chair of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III was recently named among the top 25 most influential Muslim leaders in the world.
My check of Nigerian press coverage of the event revealed tight message control. Most newspapers carried the same storyline—singling out “8 insightful quotes” from the Sultan’s Wilson Center remarks:
- “We always call on people not to vote on religious sentiment.”
- “I can’t be a true Muslim if I don’t believe in Jesus. I just don’t believe what they say about how he was born to Mary.”
- “Mosquitoes go to churches on Sunday, and mosques on Friday. Muslims and Christians must find ways to work together.”
- “We must not go back to the days of killing people over rumors of cartoons in far-away places. You can’t fight for God.”
- “Boko Haram was founded and funded by politicians.”
- “We frown at refusal to send girls to school. Girls should be educated because they are the leaders of our homes.”
- “Times have changed. We have to have ranches. Moving cows from Mali to Nigeria no longer works.”
- “If the government is doing right, support them. If the government is doing wrong, tell them they are doing wrong.”
I consider the most politically prickly comment on this list to be HE’s support for ranches as an alternative to nomadic forms of pastoralism. It touches on the sensitive area of resource conflicts between farmers and herders—which can translate on the ground into deadly ethnic violence. I’m curious to know why he chose to articulate his views on this issue while abroad.
In the end, I was disappointed that the Sultan didn’t mention the name of a woman or of a women’s organization in his remarks. But I’m very glad that we met, and I plan to follow-through on his offer.
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